Goran Despotovski

OBJECTIFIED FEELING IN GORAN DESPOTOVSKI 'S PAINTINGS AND WORKS There are artists who creatively get mature very early, so their first public expositions already call one's attention to then and their works. Indeed, Goran Despotovski, a painter from Plandi?te, near Vr?ac, is one of those young creators. His first performances have already shown how mature and convincing ware his remarkable works. However, the young artists biography gives an explanation. He had a long art training with a good background. First in 1992. he finished the second school of design Bogdan ?oput; in Novi Sad, then, the high school of fine and applied arts in Belgrade in 1996 and final in 1999, he received his degree from the Art Academy of Novi Sad where he is now attending his graduate studies with professor Du?an Todorovi?. Certainly, schools and professors of good repetitive have guaranteed that initial, unexpected precision and so convincing expression. Despotovski began to exhibit his works in 1997. while hi was sill a student, this playing his works in the exhibit halls of Vr?ac, Pan?evo, Kovin and Novi Sad. Then, he started with his dynamic independent display activities. From 1998 to 2001, Despotovski was having a dozen independent expositions of his works and, the one he had at Konkordija in Vr?ac (November-December 2000) had a retrospective aspect of his previous realizations. All of that explains why he has such an enviable production such a creative potency, an essence of strong reasons for an artistic reaction and, eventually the creative energy needed for the impetus of the time we live in. Up rising in the art trend of the end of the nineties, Despotovski has accepted its polyvalence to express the formed messages and resolutions. Because, in a very short period of time, with an enthusiastic and prolific production, he worked on classic drawings and paintings, installation, painting, object and video. In each of these media, Despotovski tried to be personal, expressing his own attitude toward the world and art in the first person, and the constant characteristics of his early artistic expressions are due "to his destine subjectivism and powerful creative impulses. His first figurative paintings, made during his training's in the Academic workshops of the Castle of Petrovaradin, artistically were already authentically organized. ?ivko Grozdani? - wrote about it in a catalog of a Vr?ac exhibition: "Led by an art intuition, Despotovski will make many works during his studies at the Academy, works which show the dynamic changes in his surroundings, changes that somehow, discretely were also a kind of o accelerator of his art. The figure that constantly appears in most of his earlier paintings is regularly a subject of dramatic changes, it seems to be so free, and always tries to express the artists feelings and reaction to the current events around him, to the reality. In some of his works, the, elements of free realism have doses of eroticism and the female sexual parts are shown in dark tons with exceptional senses of nuances. As a mature-minded painter, Despotovski paints his figures pasty and expressively. A stroko of pure, sincere directness, without any excessive metaphoric and literate elements-which are usually used in this kind of painting-is reinforced by the autonomy of the material on the backing of the picture. The figure is pushed into the background while the artistic value of the painting itself is emphasized". This comment vivisects arid precisely defines the origin of the pictorial autonomy expressed in the series of abstract paintings made in the period of 1998-2001. In fact, led by his own experience in painting, Grozdani? realizes the roots of Despotovski's abstract paintings. Obviously, the young artist had to improve step by step to the abstraction plastic outline justifies that gradualism. For Despotovski's abstraction is not associative at all, it really repudiates the memories of the item, the external appearance is not so important bat he tries to final the authentic plastic structure,the pure plastic idea. The obsessive need for a convincing expression, which is a special reality, is suggestively shown by a big size, with of the stroko, the substance and paint application thick hess, use of other non painting elements... Each element, each pictorial iten is coordinated in the picture in harmony, synthesized into a unique plastic totality. The coherence, the amazing harmony of all of those elements and the unique pictorial atmosphere make those paintings so special. Such a picture, by itself represents an outstanding achievement, The artistdoes not intend to create a "message" but tries to emphasize the idea about the autonomy of the picture itself, about its tactile values, about how special is art as a creation with its model anol recipe for one's mind to overcone the crisis,the menace, the destruction. And the pictures where the pictorial and sculptural elements are somehow connected also represent the particularity of Despotovski's opus. In fact, the plastic applications are added to the pictorial areas. So, while the picture shows the excellency by the creation of the artist's conception of the pictorial sense, the plastic applications put the accent on the origin of the real objects used. The artist chose and, added then on the picture incorporated then into its plastic structure, or somehow he confronted then with the pictorial outline. That way, he made a convection and a relation between the subjective and the rational, the unreal and the real, the fact and relief the pictorial and the sculptural" Those confrontations show a kind of expressive tension, a feeling that through those plastic supplements, seems to carry its justification and conviction. So the artist's feeling becomes real, materialized, visible, touchable, existing. Very soon, at the very end of this decade. "Despotovski will make of his paintings an area of polygon for the application of vholl plastic supplements. In the expositions in Konkordija, Vr?ac (at the end of 2000) and In. the ULUV-Gallery in Novi Sad (December 2000), the artist this played interesting objects. It was about special evocations of real items like bed, boxes, shelves, chests... Those Objects are painted with a renar cable feeling and the artist's skills changed the real repetitions of straight lines, making some constructive "mistakes", so the object does not have its initial function any more, it becomes a carrier of the artist'. s feelings and expression. Here too, the artist's idea are reproduced, very convincing by their constitution and displaying them in a, gallery, their fictive and artificial origin is strengthened. These works of Despotovski is of course, are not real objects instead, the artist tries to create a fictive vision of them in reality, we cannot use those items, but their spiritual power is extremely strong and convincing that it can overcome all the epochal crisis which have been torturing as during the last decade of the 20. Century. So Goran Despotovski, an artist at the beginning of his creative adventures, succeeded in creating an humanistic message, a message that does not dignity not only his own art but his observer as well. Sava Stepanov

Biography: Goran Despotovski was born on August 13. 1972. in Vrsac. He had finished design high school "Bogdan ?uput" on 1992. in Novi Sad. He graduated on the Art college on 1995.in Belgrade, He graduated on the painting art on the Art Academy on 1999. in Novi Sad. He graduated magisterial studie on the Art Academy 2003. in Novi Sad. Since 1999. he is a meaiber of ULUV and ULUS. PRIZES AND LAUDS The winner of the annual prizes for the painting by the art academy in Novi Sad on 1999.The winner of the The university prize in Novi Sad on 1999.For the realized results in art's activities.the winner of the prize Yu palette of the young in Vrbas on 2001.The laud from the gallery of the regional jail on 1999. in Zrenjanin.The laud on the 4-th Biennial of the young on 2000 in Vrsac.The winner of the SKC Belgrade Biennial of the young on 2002 in Vrsac. THE ANTONOMOUS EXPOSITIONS 1998. - march, Novi Sad, Art Academ's - Gallery - december, Zrenjanin, Regional jail gallery 1999. - february, Novi Sad, Gallery "The Bridge" - august, Novi Sad, Gallery "Yes" 2000. - january, Po?arevac, Gallery "the Serbian house" - february, Belgrade, Culture Club gallery at the Student's town - april, Novi Sad, Culture center's painting room - april, Sombor, Modern art gallery Laza Kostic - november, Vr?ac, Modern art gallery Concordia - december, Novi Sad, ULUV "Gallery" 2001. - february, Pancevo, Modern art gallery - Vr?ac, National theatre "Sterija". - june, Kragujevac, Gallery SCC - november, Vr?ac, Modern art gallery Concordia 2002. - february, Vrsac, National theatre Sterija. 2003. - november, Novi Sad, Art Academ's - Gallery - november, Nis, Modern art gallery 77 THE COLLECTIVE EXPOSITIONS: 1997. the 27th oktober's sallon in Pancevo; the 15th october's saloon in Kovin; the autumns sallon in Vrsac. 1998. the 27th october's sallon in Novi Sad; the 16th october's sallon in Kovin; the autumns saloon in Vr?ac; the Afrodita project Hovi Sad-Belgrade. 1999. Novi Sad the exposition of the newly-become members of ULUV; the exposition of the final year on te art academy in Novi Sad; the 28th october's sallon in Novi Sad; the 17th october's sallon in Kovin; the autumns sallon in Vr?ac; the 6th sallon of young artists in Sremski Karlovci; the 8th exposition of the small form in ?abac; the annual expositions in Plandi?te. 2000. the exposition of the drawings in ?abac; the 4th biennial of the young in Vr?ac; the springs exposition of ULUV in Novi Sad; the annual exposition in Po?arevac; the springs exposition of the "Paja Jovanovic" club in Vr?ac; the annual exposition in Plandi?te. 2001. the spirings exposition of ULUS in Belgrade; the drawings exposition in Multimedial center in Vr?ac; the exposition of the Vr?ac's authors; YU pallete of the young in Vrbas; the autumns saloon in Aleksinac; Expositions of miniature, ?abac; the 30th october's sallon in Novi Sad; the 29th oktober s sallon in Pancevo; the group expositions in SKC Kragujevac. 2002. Experimentally drawings of Nis,Modern Art Gallery Nis; Group Exhibitions ,Student Culture Center Novi Sad; 5th Biennial of the young Vrsac; the annual exhibition SULUV; 5th international festival of experiments and performances Sankt Peterbsburg ,Russia ;The internation Exibitions "Balkan's mirror",Kraljevo; the exhibition of the Vrsac's autors. 2003. Exhibitions nemogu?a prisutnost, Gallery Zlatno Oko, Novi Sad;Eko materijales in arts, Gallery Vrsac, 2004. Izlozba ``images for exhhibition of artists from Serbia``:Space galerija, Toronto;

Country: Serbia

E-mail: despotovski@hemo.net

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